The Zionist Worldview
and the Pitfalls of Confirmation Bias: A Rebuttal to Gamaliel Isaac

byLawrence Davidson

A

mong the fallacies that
get in the way of clear thinking there is one that is
known as “confirmation bias.” Here is a common
definition for this type of one dimensional thinking,
“confirmation bias refers to a form of selective
thinking that focuses on evidence that supports what the
believers already believe while ignoring evidence that
refutes their beliefs. Confirmation bias plays a
stronger role when people base their beliefs upon faith,
tradition and prejudice.” Actually, this is a quite
common practice that seems to have all but taken over
the thinking of Zionists, neo-conservatives, and the
holy rollers of the religious right. Its most dangerous
recent manifestation is the creation of the Pentagon’s
Office of Special Plans (OSP) by the Bush
administration. The job of the OSP is to search high
and low for selective evidence that might support the
hypotheses of those now in charge of our country. The OSP has worked hard to confirm our leaders a priori
beliefs and, as a result, has givenus such
deadly bloopers as Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction
and alleged partnership with Al Qaeda. Gamaliel Isaac
is not in the same league as the OSP, but he certainly
uses the same flawed thinking process.

Dr. Isaac is trying to
demonstrate that charges of misconduct on the part of
the Israelis in the Occupied Territories are false and
malicious. Just like the neo-conservatives in the Bush
administration, he so firmly hold this belief that he
just knows it has to be true. Thus, in his hunt for
supporting proof, he inevitably sees what he wants to
see. As a result he ends up with mostly selective,
particularistic evidence, which then allows him to
conclude that Israeli policies have not produced an
occupation that has harmed the Palestinian people.

In addition Isaac steps forth
with what sounds like a sensible and fair method for
discerning the truth of his claims. He tells us that he
will examine what both sides say and compare it to what
“neutral observers have observed.” And, he speaks of the
importance of verifying evidence and looking for
contradictions and inconsistencies. Well, these are all
nice words and I quite agree with his methodological goals. The problem is that he does not do what he says he is going
to do in a convincing and satisfactory way. Indeed, his
examination of the evidence is superficial and incomplete.

To put it simply, Dr. Isaac
ignores the countervailing evidence that renders his
particular cases either exceptions to a rule or possible
examples of misinformation. His ideological commitment to
Zionism apparently prevents him from recognizing that
weight of the evidence against his claims is so great
that it does not matter if one or more of his examples are
true. They simply do not add up to a body of data that
outweighs contrary evidence. Therefore, they do not warrant
the kind of definitive conclusions he draws from them. Alas, one must conclude that he has been led astray by
“confirmation bias.”

The
Examples

1.Dr. Isaac begins with an
attempt to disprove “the allegation that Israelis imprison
Palestinian students for non-violent dissent.” To
accomplish this he refers to two incidents of Palestinian
protest from 1984, the details of which can be found in his
article. The Israeli response to these Palestinian
demonstrations was allegedly restrained and considerate of
civilian life and property. To verify this he cites a
report on these incidents by observers (who witnessed only
one of the incidents first hand) from two organizations, The
World University Service and the International Commission of
Jurists. Based on this scant evidence, Isaac draws the
general conclusion that statements coming from the Israeli
military about how they approach peaceful demonstrations in
the Occupied Territories are more reliable than allegations
of brutality and unwarranted arrests made by Palestinians.

I do not know who told the
truth about the two particular incidents cited by Dr.
Isaac. However, I do know that the great weight of
evidence tells us that the Israeli government and its
occupation forces not only often imprison and mistreat
Palestinians, but they also imprison and mistreat
internationals and Israeli citizens engaged in non-violent
dissent. The Israeli military and police have repeatedly
attacked, often without provocation, peaceful demonstrators
(be they students or otherwise) particularly as relates to
demonstrations around the Wall. Injuries are commonplace,
as are arrests. Sometimes undercover police mingle with the
protestors and, acting as agents provocateur, provoke
violence. Reports of such police and army brutality come
from eye witnesses, many of whom are Israelis. Reports of
these attacks can be found in the Israeli press (the latest
report came on April 29, 2005 in Ha’aretz in reference to
the attack on demonstrators the previous day at Bil’in on
the West Bank. Video of this incident, specifically
addressing the issue of the Israeli use of agents
provocateur, can be found at
http://gush-shalom.org/video/bilin–4-5-05.html ) as well
as by such organizations as Gush Shalom (which has recently
documented the use of “painful plastic bullets covered with
salt” used against peaceful demonstrations), Ta’yush, Women
in Black , Machsom Watch and Israel’s own human rights
organization B’tselem (which has repeatedly asserted that
“Israeli security forces use of excessive force...against
unarmed demonstrators.”) Finally, it should be noted that
on the website of International Commission of Jurists, on
whose judgment Isaac relies in this instance, can be found
repeated condemnations of Israel’s “widespread and gross
violations of human rights and international law.”

One should weigh the
cumulative evidence supplied by these and other
organizations, that have been observers of Israeli behavior
in the Occupied Territories for years, with the scant and
selective evidence provided by Dr. Isaac. The massive
nature of that evidence, put forth by many
organizations (many of them Israeli) that are considered to
be reliable observers by all but the Zionist right and its
supporters, successfully undermines Isaac’s assertion that
the Israeli forces do not arrest and otherwise mistreat
Palestinian (and other) non-violent protesters in the
Occupied Territories.

Of course, I suspect that Dr.
Isaac and other Zionists will argue that such sources are
unreliable or that the literally hundreds of reports
critical of Israeli behavior coming in fast and furious over
many years are just the product of some anti-Semitic
conspiracy. This is their “confirmation bias” surfacing. Counter evidence to their a priori beliefs, no matter how
overwhelming and consistent it may be, is to be ignored or
rationalized away. However, reasonable observers confronted
with a pattern of evidence reported by multiple, independent
and reliable sources over an extended period of time will
agree that such proof has to be taken seriously.

2. Dr. Isaac’s second
example has to do with theallegations that innocent
Palestinians in Bethlehem have been bombed by the Israeli military, lethally attacked by armed settles in Hebron, and
had their homes burned in the town of Nablus. According to
the author these charges were made by the Voice of Palestine
in October 2000. All three reports were supposedly
investigated by a reporter for USA Today and found to be
untrue.

I do not know if the
particular incidents in Bethlehem, Hebron and Nablus ever
took place. However, it should be noted that the time in
question marked the beginning of the second intifada during
which, according to Human Rights Watch and B’tselem, Israeli
forces used indiscriminate and lethal force against unarmed
Palestinian demonstrators. Where then does the
weight of evidence take us?

A) In the case of
home demolitions, the United Nations Relief and Works
Agency (UNRWA) has concluded in a January 24, 2004
report that “more than 10,000 houses were demolished
since Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip in
1967.” Amnesty International, in a report issued on May
18, 2004 documented the facts that “more than 3,000
homes, vast areas of agricultural land, and hundreds of
other properties have been destroyed by the Israeli army
and security forces in the Occupied Territories in the
past three and a half years.”

B) As to the
Israeli bombings of civilian targets. This has been
going on since the creation of the state. Following the
precedents laid down by the British and French in their
own suppression of Arab revolts in Palestine and Syria, David Ben Gurion ordered “retaliatory” air strikes
against refugee camps as early as 1953. Almost every
prime minister since then has followed his example. Perhaps the best known recent incident of this sort of
barbaric behavior is the dropping of a one ton bomb on a
residential neighborhood in Gaza City in July of 2002. The Israelis were going after Salah Shehade, a
resistance leader. In the process they managed to kill
not only Shehade, but also 14 innocent people including
nine children. This was no mistake, the Israelis knew
the nature of their target area. It was rather the
product of a conscious policy that discounts the death,
injury and destruction of Arab civilian lives and
property. As a consequence of such callousness 30
Israeli air force pilots now refuse to fly combat missions against Palestinian population centers. As one
of them has put it, “we are air force pilots, not
mafia.” Dr. Isaac might claim that such Israeli
bombings are a response to Palestinian terrorism (the
Palestinians claim their violence is a response to
Israeli terrorism), or made necessary because
Palestinian resistence fighters hide out among the
civilian population, but taking such positions would
negate his suggestion that stories of Israeli atrocities
of this sort are false.

C) And finally, In
the case of attacks by armed Israeli settlers, Z Net,
the web site of Z Magazine, has put together a revealing
article on Israeli settler violence. It is by John Petrovato and is dated April 3, 2005.
However, if this source is suspect to Zionists and their
supporters we can go to an Israeli source. B’Tselem characterizes
the problem this way, “over the years settler attacks on
Palestinians in the Occupied Territories have become
routine....from the beginning of the intifada, in late
September 2000, to the end of 2004, Israeli civilians
have killed thirty four Palestinians in the Occupied
Territories.” B’Tselem goes on to comment that “all law
enforcement agencies and judicial authorities
demonstrate little interest in uncovering the
substantial violence that Israeli civilians commit
against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.”

On the topic of settler
violence, it seems uncertain if Dr. Isaac really finds this
behavior repulsive or criminal. In his essay he appears to
justify the atrocity committed by Baruch Goldstein on the 25th
of February 1994. On that date Goldstein walked into a
Hebron mosque and shot dead 29 innocent worshipers. Isaac
tries to explain Goldstein’s criminal act by telling us he
was “radicalized” by Jewish deaths caused by terrorist acts
and the anti-Israeli shouts of Palestinians. This sounds
very much like the Hamas supporters who justify suicide
bombings by pointing to the deaths of innocent Palestinians
at the hands of Israeli soldiers and the racist treatment
many of them have experienced at the checkpoints.

Additional evidence speaking
to Israel’s behavior in all of the above three categories
can be had from organizations such as Rabbis for Human
Rights, the American Friends Service Committee, and even the
State Department’s yearly Country Reports. Once more the
cumulative evidence undermining the positions taken by Dr.
Isaac is overwhelming. One can ignore it or deny it
only through a willful act of self-deception.

3. Dr. Isaac’s third
example of alleged misrepresentation of Israel’s policies
and behavior has to do with Israel’s assault on the town of Jenin and its refugee camp. This attack began on April 9,
2002 and lasted nine days. 23 Israeli soldiers died and
anywhere between 52 and 500 Palestinians. The latter number
is hard to ascertain for reasons we will come to shortly.

The Palestinians claim that
Israel massacred people in Jenin, and it is this claim that
Dr. Isaac seeks to refute. Once more, however, he makes the
mistake of relying on overly specific and thin evidence.
He calls into question the statements of Palestinians about
damage done to the Jenin hospital and allegations of Israeli
torture. He cites a French documentary that was made a full
nine months after the invasion. He cites as evidence aerial
images allegedly taken on the last day of the Israeli
incursion and pictures from Israeli drones. He accuses
the Palestinians of staging scenes for reporters’ cameras
and manufacturing atrocity stories.

It is, of course, possible
that some Palestinians exaggerated or misled when reporting
about what happened in Jenin. Just so, it is possible that
the Israelis understated or misled when describing the
consequences of their actions. As to the French
documentary, it may be accurate or itself a piece of
propaganda. In a long and drawn out conflict, with deep
hatred felt on both sides, one can no doubt find any number
of lies and exaggerations coming from all quarters. However,
this once more misses the point. The real
question is, what does the weight of evidence indicate about
the nature of Israeli behavior in Jenin? In the case of
Jenin that evidence comes from recognized and respected
international sources, as well as Israeli newspapers. Reports by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and UN
Middle East Envoy Terje Roed-Larsen (who described Israel’s
invasion as “horrifying beyond belief” and “morally
repugnant.”) indict Israel for its inhuman behavior in Jenin,
whatever the final death count. Nor does one have to rely
on these sources for verification of this behavior. One can
turn to the Israeli press, such as the reports in Israel’s
largest selling daily, Yedioth Ahronot, about the
widespread use of armed bulldozers (manufactured by
Caterpillar here in the United States) to demolish large
numbers of houses with their occupants still inside. In
reporting this the paper does not rely on Palestinian or UN
sources but rather interviews the drivers of the bulldozers.

Israel’s government claimed
that it had nothing to hide when it came to Jenin, but
nonetheless it refused to let the United Nations come and
investigate. When the UN Security Council unanimously
adopted a resolution calling for a fact-finding mission to
be sent to Jenin to determine just who was telling the
truth, the Israeli government prevented the mission from
proceeding by demanding endless changes and adjustments to
its personnel and mandate. It was a transparent and
successful use of bureaucratic obstructionism to prevent
what most neutral observers would agree was an attempt to
objectively ascertain the truth. The short and incomplete
report that was issued by the UN declared that there had
been no massacre and only 52 Palestinians had died, but then
added that its conclusions were based on mostly second hand
information because UN investigators could not go to
Jenin to see for themselves or directly interview the people
there.

On the subject of Jenin, Dr.
Isaac goes on to assert that the Israeli army staged an
invasion of the town, rather than bombarding it from the air
or from distant artillery, just because of Israel’s
humanitarian concerns. “The fact that the Israeli army
endangered their own soldiers in Jenin in order to avoid
killing civilians is a dramatic testament to the efforts of
Israel to avoid hurting civilians.” I guess that Isaac
actually believes this. You can convince yourself of just
about anything by concentrating very hard on selective
evidence, by cultivating a kind of tunnel vision that
renders suspect or invisible any evidence that does not fit
your set
world view. Fortunately, there are many Israelis
who are breaking through this mold and their testimonies are
the best antidote to baseless claims such as this one. I
recommend that Dr. Isaac consult a recently published (2003)
collection of interviews with Israeli soldiers entitled,
Breaking Ranks , edited by Ronit Chacham. It lays to
rest the myth that Israel’s military constitutes a
humanitarian force. To relate just one of the many
condemnatory descriptions of Israeli military behavior
related by these soldiers, “I refuse to be a terrorist in my
tribe’s name. That is what this [Israeli action in the
Occupied Territories] is, not a ‘war against terror’ as our
propaganda machine tries to persuade us. This is a war of
terror.” Of course, Dr. Isaac might claim that these
Israeli soldiers, all of whom have served in Gaza or the
West Bank, are traitors and thus not to be trusted. Yet,
their numbers are growing. There are now over 1650 Israelis
who openly refuse to serve in the Occupied Territories.

Flights of
Fantasy

From this point on the
Isaac’s claims become ever more bizarre. For instance, he
denies that any Israeli occupation exists. (Some may
conclude that occupation denial has the same bad odor as
holocaust denial). What he wants us to believe is that the
Jews ancient connection with Palestine justifies their
modern displacement of the indigenous population. But then
Dr. Isaac would object to the notion of displacement because
he is sure that such a thing never took place. After all,
he tells us, “the majority of Arabs living in the ‘occupied’
areas are recent immigrants who immigrated there after the
Jews created a thriving economy and made the desert bloom.” As evidence he uses statements from Mark Twain’s
Innocents Abroad as well as Ephraim Karsh and others.
Mixed into this assertion of recent immigration, Isaac
claims that the pre-Israel Palestinian population who were
resident in the area did not have a sense of Palestinian
national identity but saw themselves as part of a greater
Arab nation.

The claim that a good part of
the Palestinian population are recent immigrants is a far
fetched myth produced by Joan Peters in a now discredited
1984 work entitled From Time Immemorial. The
evidence she used to support this claim has been refuted by
Norman Finkelstein in his book Image and Reality of the
Israeli-Palestine Conflict (second edition 2003). Finkelstein has shown that Peter’s assertion in this regard
constitutes an extravagant exaggeration of the movement of
seasonal migrant labor. If Dr. Isaac will take the time to
read Finkelstein (specifically chapter 2), and do so with
the open mind he demands from others, he will see that, the
immigration argument is completely bogus. I am sure Isaac
will complain that Finkelstein is a self-hating Jew and
traitor to his people, but never mind. Finkelstein’s
destruction of the immigration argument is quite definitive.

For more evidence that there
was a thriving Palestinian community and culture before 1948 one can consult the visual and other evidence available
at
www.Palestineremembered.com and Walid Khalidi’s massive
collection of photos in Before Their Diaspora: A
Photographic History of the Palestinians, 1876-1948.

The assertion that, because
nomadic tribes of monotheistic persuasion were roaming about
the Palestine area thousands of years ago, twentieth century
Jews have the right to ethnically cleanse the same region of
its Arab population is ludicrous on the face of it. If Jews
claim that God is somehow making them do this or sanctioning
it all, then what are we to make of the values espoused by
the Jewish religion? Nor, is the fact that Palestinian
nationalism is a relatively recent development (largely
arising in conjunction with modern Jewish nationalism) any
excuse for the brutal behavior of Zionists. A certain moral
blindness is needed to take these sort of arguments
seriously. Even if these myths and biblical fables were
true (and there is no hard evidence they are) is he actually
trying to tell us that they excuse the destruction of a
society and its way of life?

Dr. Isaac can get away (at
least in his own eyes) with this perversity because he
simply does not believe that Zionists are devastating an
entire people and its culture. Indeed, using the selective
and questionable data of hard line Zionists like Efraim
Karsh, the author asserts that, up until the outbreak of the
intifadas, Israel had actually turned at least the West
Bank into a prosperous economic community--much better off
then they were under Jordan. (If the Israelis had improved
the lives of Palestinians so dramatically, one wonders why
they have so energetically rebelled?) In addition, he
quotes Menahem Milson, who was once the civil administrator
of the West Bank, to the effect that Israeli occupation (the
same occupation that Isaac suggests does not to exist) is
more culturally benign than the American occupation of
Japan. Switching over to Shlomo Gazit, who was head of the
Israeli Military Government in the Occupied Territories from
1967 to 1974, Isaac cites the old argument that Israel is in
the West Bank and Gaza Strip only because it has been forced
to be there for its own security. To back this claim he
quotes a few lines from “a memorandum for the Secretary of
Defense by the Joint Chiefs of Staff” that concurs with this
judgment.

Karsh and Gazit are hardly
the “neutral observers” that the author promised us at the
beginning of his essay. And, I will leave it to the readers
to figure out whose side the Joint Chiefs are on. As to the
economic situation in the Occupied Territories, the
weight of evidence from observers considered reliable by
most, tell a different story than Isaac and his
selective sources. Prior to the intifadas there was
employment improvement due to the Israeli economic policy of
using the Palestinians as a cheap labor pool. But this did
not result in economic development and hardly created “a
thriving economy.” Why not? Here is how Shlomo Avineri,
past Director General of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign
Affairs explains it, “Israeli GNP per capita is 20 times as
high as that in the Palestinian territories....A common
Israeli-Palestinian economic space cannot be based on
equal...cooperation, but only on a...hierarchical
relationship which at best would make the Palestinian state
a virtual Bantustan on Israel’s doorstop. One can see why
Israeli industrialists were eager to have a cheap,
non-unionized, docile Palestinian labor force at their
disposal.” What is true for a prospective Palestinian state
was certainly true for occupied territories. In 1985 then
Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin described Israel’s economic
policy toward the Palestinians this way, “There will be no
development in the Occupied Territories initiated by the
Israeli government, and no permits given for expanding
agriculture or industry which may compete with the State of
Israel.” The result was the cessation of what little
Palestinian economic growth had been allowed up until that
time.

For post intifada years we
can look at theseven World Bank reports on poverty
in the West Bank and Gaza issued between 2001 and 2004 which
tell us demonstrate that “an estimated two million
Palestinians live in poverty, dependent on aid agencies,
with 60% living on less than $2 per day and 22% of children
under five suffering acute or chronic malnutrition.” The
accuracy of this picture is confirmed by reports of the UN
Special Coordinator in the Occupied Territories; the
International Monetary Fund comprehensive reports on the
economy in the West Bank and Gaza; the reports of the Food
and Agriculture Organization of the UN on the “rapidly
deteriorating food situation” in the Occupied Territories;
and additional information provided by US AID, Johns
Hopkins University’s Center for International Emergency,
Disaster, and Refugee Studies, and the well respected
organization CARE. All of these show without question that
the economic situation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is
bad and getting worse every year, and that this situation is
due in large part to Israeli policies.

Finally, is it really
security that has brought the Israelis into the Occupied
Territories and kept them there for the past 38 years? Most
Israelis and their diaspora supporters will reply to this
question with a simple formulaic answer: all Palestinians
are potential terrorists seeking the destruction of Israel. Terrorists come from the Occupied Territories and so Israel
must control these areas. This simplistic analysis
completely ignores the repeated Palestinian efforts to
secure a compromise peace with Israel leading to a two state
solution based on Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 Green
Line. Such a withdrawal would end the occupation and remove
the major cause of violence against Israel. Even Hamas’
leaders have suggested that this is the case. To this end,
in 1988, the PLO recognized Israel’s right to exist within
its 1967 borders (which negated its charter statement
seeking a Palestinian state in all of Palestine),
subsequently it has accepted most of the international and
American overtures for negotiations, signed the Oslo and
Geneva agreements, and still knocks on the door of the
Israeli leadership whose desire for peace is much more
suspect than that of the Palestinians.

These efforts on the part of
the Palestinians are rationalized away by Zionists who
prefer to live with their myths (such as Barak’s “generous
offer”) and fantasies (such as the notion that Palestinians
are latter day Nazis). They ring their hands over the
threats from Hamas as if that organization, or any other
group of Palestinians even be they allied with Israel’s Arab
neighbors, could actually muster the power to “kick the
Jews into the sea.” There is no intelligence service
outside of Jerusalem which really believes this can happen.
No military engagement (including those of 1948) has ever
come close to suggesting this scenario was or is possible. And, let us keep in mind, that thanks to enormous and
continuous US military aid, Israel is ranked somewhere
between the fourth and seventh strongest power on the
globe. Indeed, it is the Palestinians who are being slowly
but surely kicked out of their land, not the Israelis.
The truth is that the occupation does not make Israel
secure, it is in fact the source of the country’s
insecurity.

If Israelis want peace and
security they must allow peace and security for the
Palestinians within a viable state. But they won’t do this
because many of them, and that includes both the Labor Party
and the Zionist right (to say nothing of the settler lunatic
fringe) do not want peace at all. They want the land. That is why Israeli governments have spent 38 years making
the lives of millions of Palestinians miserable while
dancing around most of the international peace initiatives
(as well as violating the spirit of those few they have
engaged in). That is why they have illegally moved hundreds
of thousands of colonists into the Occupied Territories. No
rational and independent observer would conclude that the
placement of over 200,000 colonists in hostile territory
amidst millions of Palestinians is a sane policy for the
promotion of Israeli national security.

Since the Zionists have seen
fit to colonize the Occupied Territories in a manner that
threatens the indigenous population with, at best
ghettoization and an apartheid existence, and at worst
forced expulsion, it is sheer hypocrisy for them to cry foul
when suffering the consequences of the inevitable resistance
of their victims. For, despite Dr. Isaac’s blindness to
this fact, occupied people have a right to resist. One may debate the wisdom of some of their tactics, but the
inherent right of resistance is only denied by oppressors
and their supporters. It is the Palestinians who are the
victims of Zionist expansionism and not the other way
around. And, in the process the Israelis have terrorized
the Palestinian population. That they are now terrorized in
turn is but a reflection of the sorry truth that the
violence of the oppressed usually rises to the level of the
violence of the oppressor.

Conclusion

I began this rebuttal by
explaining that one can affirm one’s a priori beliefs by
concentrating on the selective evidence that supports them. This is what all ideologues do whether they are driven by
political, religious, or ethnic obsessions. When such people
gain power their policies usually lead to oppression,
violence, destruction, and death. Democracy is not a sure
remedy for this problem because, as we saw in US election of
November of 2004, it is often possible to fool most of the
people most of the time.

In the 20th
century two world wars were fought by leaders with one or
another form of obsession supported by selective evidence. The second war almost wiped out European Jewry. So
traumatic were these wars that they resulted in a series of
rules for the behavior of nations in war and in peace. These are incorporated into international treaties such as
the Geneva conventions and Hague conventions. Such treaties
represent rare moments of international sanity. Most of
Israel’s activities in the Occupied Territories (the
colonization, the vast majority of the house demolitions,
the destruction of fields and wells, violence against
civilians, the building of a ghetto/apartheid wall, and most
of all the insatiable stealing of land) are illegal under
these treaties. Israel and the United States, having taken
on the role of 21st century Prussians, might now
disparage these agreements. However, to throw them over in
favor of policies driven by ideology, religion or ethnicity
is criminal folly that recasts the world stage for future
decades of death and destruction.

Dr. Isaac seems not to
understand any of this. His world appears to be
one-dimensional and the defining parameters of that world
are the rigid, ethnocentric, and all inconclusive demands of
Zionist ideology. To justify that small and closed world he
has resorted to believing only the selective evidence that
confirms his biases. I recommend that, if possible, he step
back from that practice and consider the possibility that
Zionism has not saved the Jews, but rather brought them to
the edge of moral disaster. From this point the Jews can go
one of two ways: continue on the present Zionist-inspired
path into a future of insecurity, fear, paranoia, and
increasingly brutal violence where might makes right and
ends justify means. Or, they can harken to that old
Talmudic saying, “By three things is the world sustained: by
truth, by judgement, and by peace.” That requires the
vision to see the truth of one’s own sins as well as others,
the objectivity to judge when compromise is needed, and a
sincere desire for peace for all who reside in
Israel/Palestine. Which path has Dr. Isaac chosen?

Lawrence Davidson is a frequent contributor to
Logos and is Professor of
Middle East History at West Chester University in West
Chester, PA. He is author of two recent books:
Islamic Fundamentalism (Greenwood Press, 2003) and
America's Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from
Balfour to Israeli Statehood (University Press of
Florida, 2001). He also has written over twenty published
articles on US perceptions of and policies toward the Middle
East.